Rick Murray
Richard 'Rick' Murray was a character on the TV series Degrassi: The Next Generation. He is played by Ephraim Ellis. Background Rick is an only child who lives with his mother and father. His father appears to travel on business, often leaving Rick and his mother home alone. Season 3 In the episode Whisper to a Scream from Season 3, he anonymously leaves Terri MacGreggor roses at her locker and is later caught by Terri. He then makes his confession - that it was him leaving the roses all along. The two get into a relationship but it turns abusive. When there was a school play at Degrassi, Terri gets the lead role and Jimmy gave her great tips in rehearsal, while Rick gave some pretty bad tips. During the play, Terri takes Rick's tips and embarrasses herself in front of the entire school. Afterwards, Terri says she should have listened to Jimmy. This leads Rick to believe that Terri has more of a crush on Jimmy then himself. Rick retaliates by hurting Terri often and later apologizing, because of his 'fears of her leaving him for Jimmy', who was still single at the time. Hazel notices Terri's "love bruises" and tries to convince her to leave Rick after Terri confesses to her at Paige's girls' night out. At first Terri disapproves, but after Rick pushes her into a wall again, she dumps him. Months later, Terri and Rick are forced to be partners in a trust exercise. Terri fears this at first, but Rick promises he'll catch her, and he does. Terri and Rick end up back together at the end of the class. At first everybody is flabbergasted, still remembering what Rick did months ago, and they get even more flabbergasted when Terri wants to invite him to the road trip Paige is having when she gets the family van to herself. Terri tries to convince everybody that Rick's changed, and when they stop at a park during the trip, Paige and Rick get into a fight which leads to Paige calling him a psycho while he runs into the forest. Terri runs after him and tells him that Paige was just being Paige and they should go back. Rick, being mad since he thinks that his feelings mean nothing to Terri, pushes her to the ground where she near-fatally hits her head on a cinder block, putting her into a coma. Afterwards, Rick left Degrassi. Season 4 When he returns and has to repeat tenth grade because of his departure, everybody is still mad at him for what he did the previous year. The other students feel that he should not be in school but Mr. Raditch disagrees. Paige and Emma begin a silent protest with orange ribbons (not knowing that men can be victims of both dating and domestic violence as well, and not just women), which leads Rick to find himself the victim of violence (and also ironically experiencing how it must've felt for Terri when he hurt her). When Jay was beating up Rick in the same spot where he beat up Terri twice, Emma realized this had gone too far and defended him before Alex joined in. Emma then goes against the protest and talks to him the day after, leading them to become acquaintances. Rick also developed a secret crush on her afterward. Despite one person now going against the protest, the bullying continues. When Rick shows up at the spirit squad car wash Jimmy tells him to get lost and sprays the back of the car with a hose as he drives away. When paired up in the "Whack-Your-Brain" competition by Mr. Simpson, Toby Isaacs became his friend. The two even had friendly competitions, like a "Kiss Emma" contest and a "Who can kiss the most girls" contest. When Rick was losing the latter, Toby paid Darcy Edwards $5 to kiss Rick. Darcy did so, not knowing about the abuse to Terri, and Jay ended up shoving Toby in a locker after witnessing the event. After "Whack-Your-Brain" teammate Heather Sinclair becomes ill before the competition, Jimmy was forced to become contestant alongside with Rick. After realizing how he's not so bad after all during practices and that the bullying had gone too far, he becomes friendly towards him, and even defends him against Jay, Alex, and Spinner Mason once. School Shooting, Death, and Aftermath On the "Whack-Your-Brain" finals where Rick is teamed with Toby, Jimmy and Emma, Degrassi is tied with the another school. Rick is chosen to break the tie and he wins for Degrassi. Rick then gets yellow paint and feathers spilled on himself due to a prank set up by Jay and Spinner, and activation by Alex, and goes home, only to come back with his father's handgun hidden in his back-pack. He was originally going to shoot Paige, but after she expresses her sympathies and admits that she was disgusted with the prank, he decides not to. They also forgave each other about Terri. Rick then cleans himself off in the washroom when Jay and Spinner walk in. Rick hides in a stall as Spinner tells Jay he's convinced Mr. Raditch knows. Jay then notices the yellow paint in the sink and sees Rick's feet in the stall. He then starts talking about how well Jimmy played his part. Spinner, also noticing Rick, plays along and talks about how Jimmy was an inside man. Rick, hurt by Emma for rejecting him after he kissed her, and at Jimmy who he thought stabbed him in the back, confronted Jimmy and shot him in the back as he tried to run away. Rick then goes after Emma who is with Sean Cameron and Toby at the time. Sean points out that Rick has a gun and to walk away. Rick closes his eyes with the gun in his hand and yells at them, "Don't turn away from me!" Sean tries his best to convince Rick to put the gun down and is almost successful but Rick points his gun at Emma and Sean grabs the gun in an attempt to stop him. Toby yells "stop!" A gunshot is heard, and they both fall to the ground. It is revealed later that Rick has been killed. Toby then hated Rick like everyone else, and when Danny Van Zandt and J.T. Yorke are mad at him for being friends with a "psycho", Manny Santos tells him that Toby would've never became friends with Rick if J.T. hadn't ignored Toby and hung out with Danny all the time in the first place. J.T. then reflects on (and regrets) all the things he said to Toby. Toby ends up going to Rick's memorial service, when J.T. shows up as well, after learning his lesson from Manny. Sean is then treated as a hero but is having trouble expressing his feelings about the shooting. He then moves back with his parents in Wasaga Beach, after having a huge fight with them when Sean sees them express their feelings about the shooting and crying (even though they kicked him out). Mr. Raditch gets transferred to a new school because of the shooting, and Ms. Hatzilakos takes his place as principal. Jimmy is hospitalized and is paralyzed from the waist down and is confined to a wheelchair. Spinner, feeling guilty for what he did to Rick and indirectly Jimmy (while wishing he had been Rick's friend from the start), confesses to what he and Jay told Rick. Jimmy and Spinner are in the gym when Spinner says, "When that paint was dumped on Rick, we told him that you did it." Jimmy replies, "And then he shot me..." Jimmy rolls away and Spinner is left alone. After a drunken afternoon, Spinner attempts to apologize to Jimmy, but he ends his and Spinner's friendship by telling him that he's dead to him. The following day, Spinner confesses to Ms. Hatzilakos that he and Jay actually ended up getting Rick to bring the gun because of the yellow paint and feathers prank (which they set up). Ms. Hatzilakos then calls their parents and expels both of them. A year later, Spinner is back because of Ms. Hatzilakos's offer to summer school and has to repeat 11th grade. Nobody has forgiven him yet; slowly, however, he gains his friends back during the year. There's just one last person, the victim himself: Jimmy. When the class of 2006 is graduating, which is also the class that Spinner and Jimmy were supposed to be in but are held back due to Jimmy not having enough credits to graduate because of recovery and Spinner having to repeat 11th grade because of the prank that caused the shooting. Spinner and Jimmy watch their class graduating and getting their diplomas, and Jimmy finally forgives Spinner for what he did to him. Their friendship then starts up again. Note: Rick had been in only 2 sessons, making him the shortest lived character at degrassi. Curse of Degrassi In the 2008 Degrassi Halloween special, it is the 3-year anniversary of the school shooting. Holly J, Jane, Mia, Danny, Sav, and Anya stay to help set up the Degrassi "Harvest Dance". Holly J (who was in charge) left to go to her locker to get the raffle tickets. In her locker she found Rick's glasses (which still had yellow paint on them) and picked them up. Rick then took over her body. Meanwhile, Jane calls Spinner and tells him to come join the others at the dance. Spinner refuses, feeling guilty on the shooting's anniversary. Murray, Rick